THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said there was no reason to be over apprehensive about the social media propaganda that the other state begging mafia had arrived here to abduct children. Allaying the people’s fears in the wake of reports of black stickers being affixed
on the window panes of houses in various parts of the state, the Chief Minister in his Facebook post said the police had been asked to intensify patrolling and surveillance against the begging mafia.
He asked the people to intimate the police in the event of anything unnatural being found in their locality. However, the Chief Minister criticised the trend of people manhandling the suspects and spreading the visuals of manhandling them through social media.
“Manhandling suspects and posting the visuals on social media cannot be accepted in a society like ours. Such incidents had been reported from Malappuram. But it will help only to lead the society into wrong trends,” he said.
He expressed the doubt some miscreants and anti-social elements might be behind the affixing of black stickers with the aim of creating confusion. The local self-government bodies and residential associations should keep vigil, he said.
Meanwhile, the Forensic Department has examined the black stickers affixed on the window panes and found many of them were similar to the ones found in glass shops. As many as 152 cases of affixing stickers have been reported in the Thiruvananthapuram Rural district alone.
The police have registered an FIR in some stations and started conducting a probe. According to the police, investigators doubt the role of anti-socials in triggering panic and confusion among the people.
Some of them are of the view the real criminals will not be intimating their move to kidnap children or trespass into the house for theft.
However, police chief Loknath Behra has alerted all concerned to step up vigil against the miscreants and criminal gangs.